When People Care More About a Chicken Sandwich Than Your Rights

http://goo.gl/a39hV

I purposefully have not eaten there in the past 4 years(since I found out they made a workplace that was unfriendly for non-hetero people), and I have not shopped at Target for the past 4 years, either–which Target was the larger sacrifice–they actually have decent plus-sized clothing and there’s not much other choice for my price range. But you know what, I still do it–why? Because rights are more important than cheap clothing. Rights are more important than waffle fries or a chicken sandwich.
Yes, I have given up, but you know what, it’s worth it. I’m Bi–yes I could just pass as a hetero person but I purposefully bring up my attraction to women to point out that it’s not just affecting gay and lesbian people–it affects anyone who isn’t a straight “1” on the Kinsey scale.
I’ve experienced this first hand–my parents are both racist and homophobic, so any time I’ve met someone who’s either non-white or non-male, I can’t introduce my parents to them–and I don’t want anyone else to ever deal with these sorts of things, ever. It’s why I speak up so much about rights. Nobody should have to hide who they love. Nobody should live in fear.
And yes it’s highly personal, but this is to counter all the religious nuts who claim that “well my beliefs are personal but it’s not like eating at chick-fil-a will hurt you.”
They can, and they will.

There seems to be a curious disconnect here.  Saying that marriage is one man, one woman ( which i don’t agree with ) doesn’t equate to hate.  This author seems determined to misunderstand this, even directly accusing someone who directly says he doesn’t care if someone is gay with pretty despicable hatred “my life is worth less than a chicken sandwich.”  The author is putting a lot of words in people’s mouth that not only have they not said, but they would likely find repugnant.  You have a valid point, you don’t have to fabricate reality to justify it. 

I drove near some Chick fil A’s around town and noticed huge crowds. Made me want to vomit. I can’t believe that people would willingly and knowingly give money to a company that financially supports groups that promote demonization of a large group of people. 

Saying “marriage is one man, one woman” isn’t necessarily hate in and of itself… it’s the “… and the government should enforce my beliefs through legislation” part that pisses us off. It’s the donating to hate groups and organizations that are hell-bent on keeping LGBT people as second-class citizens with fewer rights than the rest of us. That’s where the hate comes in.

So, would you admit that opposition to interracial marriage is racist? Or do you only claim support for legal discrimination is not hateful when it’s convenient for you? 

Even if you ignore the obvious bigotry of their stance, Chick-fil-a is donating money to organizations that advocate the imprisonment and murder of gay people.  They are supporting TERRORISM.  If that doesn’t equate to hate in your book, then you are an idiot.  

Agreed—these actions aren’t necessarily the product of hate. I’m glad I’m not the only one to recognize that, at least, some of the people supporting Cathy think they are doing what is right.

Who on earth is suggesting that these people don’t think what they are doing is right? What they perceive about their actions is largely irrelevant.

Oh, they all knew. Don’t tell me they didn’t know. 

 I’d comment but you probably stated it better than I could.  Chicken sandwich versus human rights is a false dichotomy.

No one. No one on Earth. I must have imagined it. Sorry.

David,

The religious right and Fox News has done a good job muddying the issue by trying to make it solely about gay marriage. I even saw poeple trying to say that liberals were hypocrits because they are going after Chick-fil-a for supposedly having the same position on gay rights that Obama had until a couple months ago. Besides the fact that liberals did criticize Obama for his wishy-washy stance on gay marriage, there isn’t a comparison between Obama being reticent on gay marriage, but fully supporting the repeal of DOMA and “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and supporting civil unions with all the same rights as straight couples, and the stances of the groups Chick-fil-a was giving to, which I will outline below.

Chick-fil-a is giving to groups who want to break up gay families, support criminalizing homosexuality, have called for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in all 50 states, are against civil unions, support keeping legal employment and housing discrimination, compare gay people to pedophiles, force gay teenagers to attend reparative therapy,  say the main goal of the gay movement is to role back age consent laws so they can have sex with young boys, who have loudly opposed anti-bullying laws unless they exempt bullying based on religious beliefs, and even spent money trying to get the US congress to not condemn a bill in Uganda that would have forced gay people to be put in jail for their whole lives, and in some cases even get the death penalty. I’m sure some of the poeple supporting Chick-fil-a don’t know that is the kind of stuff that Exodus International, the Family Research Council, and other groups are doing with Chick-fil-a’s money, but many do and still proudly support the company.

You could argue that, but it’s irrelevant.  Winshape doesn’t just “say” that they have their own definition of marriage.  They lobby to have anyone who doesn’t agree with their definition denied the legal rights and privileges of people who have legal marriages.
They also give money to people who preach conversion of gay people to straight by various means, all known to do varying kinds and amounts of damage to subjects and none shown to “work” (i.e., turn gay people into straight people) except by convincing gay people to give up sexuality altogether or engage in “heterosexual behaviors.”
And they give money to people who spent tens of thousands of dollars lobbying to stop a Congressional resolution that denounced Uganda’s proposal to criminalize homosexuality (opponents will explain that the statute only calls for the death penalty in cases of “aggravated homosexuality,” or what would normally simply be called rape, but that doesn’t make it OK to criminalize simply being homosexual, since the penalties would not include death.)  The Ugandan bill that the same groups lobbied for in Uganda.

The continual outcry that the whole thing is an attack on Dan Cathy for having an opinion, or for speaking of his opinion, just isn’t the truth.  

I’m with you on most of this, Hemant, but I don’t think this means we should speak out against religion. This means we should speak out against intolerant, bigoted arseholes.

There’s a huge intersect in the venn diagram between religious people and bigots, but there are religious people who aren’t bigots, and there are bigots who aren’t religious. It’s important not to piss off people who are on the right side on this issue.

Yeah, better watch your tone in case you lump all the Christians together so they have to decide which cause to defend and pick their beliefs over equality for gay people. Clue: most of the bigotry derives from biblical interpretations of marriage, and Christian privilege to flaunt bigotry. You can’t not point this out. Tough for those in the middle of the road.

“Derp herp jus cuz they think gay people are immoral sinners who don’t deserve equal rights duzn’t meen dey hate gay peoplez!”

Let’s be honest: if it were Christians being persecuted nobody would pretend it wasn’t bigotry. If Richard Dawkins started holding rallies in support of taking away Christian’s right to marriage nobody would believe for a moment that he didn’t hate them. If the majority of Atheists wanted it to be legal to fire someone for being Christian nobody would believe for a second that we weren’t bigots.

The majority of gay marriage opponents simply hate gay people. If they didn’t hate gay people then the debate would only be over the word ‘marriage’. The reality is that LBGT people in over half the country still leave in fear that we’ll be fired if anyone finds out what we do on our days off. I’ll believe that the majority of Christians don’t hate gay people when they stop voting down anti-discrimination laws for us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LGBT_employment_discrimination_law_in_the_United_States.svg

Actually, after reading the rather epic thread on the issue over at Jesus Needs New PR, I get the sense that it’s about half-and-half for supporters of the CFA Day, between those who were hoodwinked by the free speech argument and those who just don’t like gay people.

And the thread also had lots of Christians as disappointed and disgusted as we are over their co-religionist’s behavior and calling them out on it, so that was heartening.

How many times now have you been told what the boycott is about? And why aren’t you listening?

I was afk from July 31 to Aug. 3, so I didn’t get to see that. I’m gauging by how quickly this spread over facebook before I left and would have guessed everyone who ate at CFA on Aug. 1 knew exactly why they wanted to be there. Of course all their sources may be different from mine and giving them the softball version and all they knew was they had to rescue poor Dan Cathy from the evil gays. Which doesn’t really make me feel better because of how quickly they reacted to a call without even finding out why. I mean, think about it.

Oh, I certainly agree that tribal effects really drove a lot of it, the whole “Christians are under attack for doing Christiany things!” really gets them out in droves, and no, they individually don’t tend to think about it too hard.

But that wouldn’t exactly distinguish Christians from any other group one cares to name. People close ranks when they perceive a threat from the outside, and it is always the exception rather than the rule for a person to see through their own side’s BS.

Me, personally, I want to personally slap Mayors Menino and Emmanuel and that idiot alderman for handing them a distraction on a silver plate and giving their “they’re opprezzin our speech!!!!eleventy-one1!” the appearance of accuracy, since in order to defuse that argument takes a bit of patience that people don’t generally have when their emotions are heightened and they’re in combat mode. Chilling speech through official disapproval *is* a serious thing, so despite the fact that everyone whose paying attention knows Boston and Chicago have no legal leg to stand on for enforcing their disapproval, nobody needs to be doing bigots any rhetorical favors.

That’s just the point. Call them out, but call them out because they’re bigots with ridiculous views, not because they’re Christians. People will make their own minds up in their own time about whether the church is something they want to have anything to do with based on their record, but forcing the issue by drawing a line in the sand may not be the best idea.

I do have a “people problem” sometimes because I don’t understand this reaction. It has bothered me a long time that any time you criticize something from the extreme fundamentalist Christians, something that is actually dangerous or detrimental to society, middlers will come back with “we’re not all like that, I hope you know…” and go on some other tangent about how they are true Christians and not trying to hurt anyone. It can be hard to tell people apart sometimes, because few Christians will claim to be like the WBC, they will welcome you in their front door if you show up and offer you iced tea and speak calmly and in sweet tones about those gosh darn fags wanting to get married and what an abomination it is, and everyone will be “tsk, I knoooow” and shake their heads in disappointment in the state of the world.

People who vote against marriage equality, people who encourage others to vote against marriage equality, and people who pay money to organizations as foul as Dan Cathy does, and by proxy to him to support those organizations, no matter how nice they like to pretend they are are just as bad as the WBC in effect. WBC are not afraid to come out and say it like they really mean it, while a whole lot of Christians are in deep denial that they hate and are bigots because they have a lot of friends and people think they are nice.

Aside from this, you got liberal Christians who put up a fight any time someone criticizes either of these sets of people. Holy fuck, we weren’t talking about you! Now were we? That’s how I feel every time someone takes time out of their busy gays-loving-and-not-hating-at-all schedule to set people right on their personal relationship with Christ that allows them to still get into heaven even if they vote and support marriage equality. Not all Christians hate gays or oppose marriage equality – got it. It’s like you need a lawyer just to post on a forum so nobody takes you personally.

Perhaps you’re not aware of this but the old bigot is giving money for hate groups to fight against basic human rights for gays, that he makes by selling chicken sandwiches. I realize it’s complicated but do try to catch up.

1) Thank you for linking to this–I’m very glad I saw it and have passed it along.

2) When the heck are you guys going to learn the distinction between “fundamentalism” and “religion”?? 

MINORITIES SHOULDNT HAVE RIGHTS, JUST ASK A CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN, JUST ASK HITLER…

Genocide. Not terrorism, Genocide.

What a bunch of babies.  What is it like to live in a bubble of your own making.  Now, there are two possibilities here.  Either you simply ignore facts in order to live in this bubble by ignoring the actual events, or you secretly  were for the mayors using their political office to punish non-liberal wrong think (despite how so many said they were really against it).  Face it, most of the Christians and others did not do or say horrible things.  The ones in my area were low key, peaceful, and unless you define hate as failing to conform to your demands for right think, they were just showing their opinions, and in a more mature way than many on the left I might add.  No, what brought out the Christians was Big Brother stepping in and trying to punish non liberal wrong think.  Since so, so many atheists and liberals said they were just as bothered, you wouldn’t think there would be an issue.  But the more I read these little baby rants, I’m beginning to think that was bull, and in fact a growing number of leftists and secularists want nothing other than what those mayors did, and more of it.  Which isn’t surprising, since the mantra of the modern left seems to be ‘in all things sex, drugs and bathroom humor freedom and liberty; in everything else government control, censorship, and suppression of non-liberal wrong think.’

Well aren’t you sweet.

Re: … the mayors using their political office to punish non-liberal wrong think …

Which mayor, exactly, has actually harmed any “non-liberal wrong think” company? Please describe the event in detail. I’d like to know when it happened.

… and no, mayors mouthing off about what they might do sometime in the future, does not count. I want specific actions, not mere words, which have been documented as having taken place.

Please identify when this happened. If you cannot or will not do so, then your diatribe is based on a false premise and can therefore be safely ignored.

“We’re not all like that, we just can’t be bothered to demonstrate that fact in any way other than repeatedly whining ‘we’re not all like that’!”

That man’s story made me cry. How long will people continue to treat fellow humans this way in the name of god? Enough is enough.

Social conservatives make extensive use of a tactic you yourself descrpbe as “pure distilled evil”, with no regard for the facts and no sign whatsoever of remorse. Exactly how is it inaccurate to describe them as “depraved”?

Nice retort.  That’s another way of say, “I, TCC, have nothing of substance I can refute with.”

No, that’s not it at all. We’ve seen arguments like yours thousands of times here, from sky-fairy-believers that are feeling butthurt. And we’ve refuted, debunked and categorically destroyed those arguments, over and over again. So we’re kind of tired of it.

I see your indignation over TCC’s retort and raise you our outrage at disingenuous douchecanoes like you and your fellow god-sheep who are systematically doing your best to deny human rights to a category of people. So shove your faux outrage up your ass.

In other words, you won’t accept evidence of liberals condemning the actions of Menino, Emanuel, et al. because it doesn’t fit in neatly with your preconceived notions of liberals.

The fact is that those mayors aren’t going to be able to do what they have said initially they were going to do, and in fact, they even acknowledge that. Nothing needed to be done to support free speech, certainly not giving money to a business that actively fights gay rights by donating money to anti-gay groups. If you support gay rights but bought food from CFA to show support for free speech, I question your logic.

Take off your social conservative blinders and open your eyes. You come here accusing everyone of supporting what some mayors did. Do you know what a straw man fallacy is? Because you committed it. Go read some of the comments and you will see that by and large people here were NOT happy with what Alderman Moreno said.

CFA’s “stand for free speech” does not give it, you or your compatriots the right to not be criticized for what you say. Go ahead continue your bigoted stance, and we’ll continue shaming you publicly for your odious behaviour.

I hear you Pseudonym, and I understand. But I’m not the one who decided to vilify an entire group of people *who did nothing to deserve it*. Social conservatives *chose* to adopt religious fundamentalism, *chose* to become exclusionary, and *chose* to categorically ignore reason for their pet delusions. All that the LGBTQ crowd, and blacks, and brown people, and women, etc., did was be *born*.

So please understand my position when it comes to dealing with social conservatives. I’m not harsh because I like being mean, I’m harsh because I’m angry, and absolutely positively FED UP with their smarmy platitudes, deluded, self-centred thinking, vile perspectives and stomach-turning religious privilege. I’m not AT ALL looking for a bridge that crosses the chasm between them and us. I’m looking for a way to utterly crush them and push them into the margins where they can’t hurt anybody anymore.

Suggestion noted, it’s on my reading list. Thanks for the info.

And if a mayor said he was going to move to keep any pro-gay establishments out of a city, you would say the same?  Ah, it begins to swing the other way now. 

Keep in mind how much of the population is kids. It’s a much lower number.  It’s still a lot more than people think it is, but also realize that a tremendous number of those SSM supporters aren’t saying anything. As Baby_Raptor notes, that is tacit agreement with the other side at this point.

Actually, if it wasn’t a free speech issue, then why were all those people saying they were against what the mayors did because it was a free speech issue.  Or was that yesterday’s truth of the moment?

Again, a lazy, intellectually vacant and cowardly way to respond.  You might as well stick your tongue out while you’re at it.  It’s a great way for you to say nothing other than ‘I have no way in the world of saying anything substantive, so maybe if I invoke my inner pre-adolescent, I’ll get some other intellectual pre-pubescents to join in.’  Oh, and congratulations, you would be right in thinking that, judging from the other responses.

In other words, it’s strange to see liberals saying they were against it, when now so many are acting as if there was never anything to see in the first place.  At first I was happy to see it, until I started to notice a growing number of folks acting as if there was never anything to condemn.  If it was no big deal, as a growing number are saying, or if there was no free speech for those folks to protest, then just what were all those liberals and pro-gay supporters saying was wrong?

The irony is rich with this one. 🙂

 Speaking of little baby rants…

 If a person decides to not support marriage equality because I say something mean about their religion, then they weren’t allies to begin with.

“Oh, I was going to support your equal rights under the law, but then you went and hurt my feelings. I could have been an ally”

Not if the mayor then came out and said,”oh wait, nm, that’s illegal”–which this mayor did. Also, plenty of liberals have spoken out against what the mayor did, even on this blog, in this very thread.

It’s a great way for you to say nothing other than ‘I have no way in the world of saying anything substantive…

No, what we’re saying is this: We’ve spent years refuting the inane arguments of evangelicals and far right wingnuts, and simply can’t be bothered any longer. There is no communicating with you people. No argument, no matter how well-crafted, will convince you; you simply keep furiously clutching your security blanket, howling about the attacks on your belief system. Then, when we throw up our hands and say, “Fine then, you’re just idiots”, you pounce upon that and say, “Aha, see? Nothing of substance!”

Why are you even here? Isn’t Fox News on?

 Because if the best way you can think of to stand up for freedom of speech (in the face of a nebulous non-assault by a handful of idiot politicians) is to support somebody who spends his money treating LGBT as subhuman, then you lose the benefit of the doubt.

That’s bullshit. It is possible for a person to say that they oppose leaders’ attempt to discriminate through zoning or whatever against legal businesses while also saying that such discrimination was never going to happen because it would be illegal and thus very easily remedied by the courts. More or less, Menino and Emanuel were saying, “We don’t want you here,” which they are perfectly within their rights to do (free speech, after all) as long as they do not take action to prevent CFA or any anti-gay-supporting business from coming to their towns. So, somewhat ironically, what you call a violation of free speech was actually just an exercise of free speech.

Discrimination…you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

This. There are ways to support free speech without also supporting bigotry, and anyone who supports gay rights who came out to CFA is shooting themselves in the foot, so to speak.

 Are these people allowed to marry?
Than it is not the same thing.

Willful ignorance, idiocy, and bigotry wrapped up in arrogance and self righteousness.

You’ve been looking in the mirror..

Trol.

Last attempt to get my point of view across, because I’m clearly taking a pasting here, and I’ve got better things to do with my time than present myself as a target. I understand what you’re saying, and I half-agree, but it depends what’s meant by “[speaking] out against religion”. It could mean pointing out that religious views enable bigotry, which is fair enough, or it could mean using this episode as a reason to condemn all religions and religious beliefs, which isn’t. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

I’ve heard a lot about the people queueing at Chick-Fil-A to make a point. Anecdotally, I’m not sure if I’ve heard a single person say they want to see gay people locked up, in line with the FRC’s position that’s being supported by Cathy. But a lot of people have said they’re counter-protesting some godless liberal attempt to intolerantly infringe on his right to free speech (paraphrasing slightly). I’m guessing that a lot of people don’t feel comfortable supporting that sort of bigotry, but find it much easier if they can portray it as a point of principle or identity. If you make religion the battleground, you’re only making it easier for them.

Of course it’s not very appealing to attract the support of people who will support vile people like this as soon as they’re given an excuse, but that’s the pragmatic nature of public campaigns. Is there a politician who never got a vote from someone they’d prefer not to be associated with? I doubt it. If we want to win this battle, we need to avoid alienating people wherever possible. Of course, if you just want to mock the god-botherers, have at it, but it won’t win gay acceptance any sooner, and may well delay it.

Menino blocked a permit based on a a desire to persecute the CFA owners for exercising their free speech rights and rights to free association. That is a direct rights violation with the stated motive being a desire to violate those rights, because their exercise was the reason given for withdrawing the permit. In addition Menino has indirectly violated the right of free association of all the people who wish to do business with CFA from investors and employees to customers. The Christians aren’t making this up, and this is why there was the large turnout, not because someone said they didn’t like CFA. I have no idea where all these commenters are getting their information, but unfortunately this is a true instance of Christians being persecuted for their beliefs. It might be argued that Rahm Emanuel was merely exercising his right to free speech but not Menino.

Why are you calling it a non-assault (and I am not referring to your misuse of the word in your metaphor)? My understanding was that a permit was blocked. That would be an actual attack, a battery, if we are going to use your metaphor, and the threat to pull future permits would be a metaphorical assault (which is a threat to commit battery).

You don’t think all those groups are discriminated against? Huh? His comment was pointless but that wasn’t the reason why. It was pointless because one person being wronged doesn’t make a different person being wronged right. He believes in two unrelated wrongs make a right.

I wasn’t up to date on the news on this. Menino has now admitted that what he was doing was a rights violation.

From a news article:

“I can’t do that. That would be interference to his rights to go there,” Menino said, referring to company president Dan Cathy, who drew the mayor’s wrath by going public with his views against same-sex marriage.

So not at all surprising that many people believed that there was a rights violation here on the part of the mayors. Even they now recognized they were planning such a violation.

Now if only Bloomberg would recognize that fact about salt, soda, and guns.

Your problem is that you just assumed with your gross over generalization that I, an atheist, a rights supporter (the gay is superfluous), and a liberal (of the classic variety) did not think that CFA day was about the fact that Menino claimed he planned some very serious rights violations. I do say, “Oh my that was horrible.” and I will continue to believe it was horrible until I here a good argument why it wasn’t, and I haven’t yet. I also believe that most of this support on CFA day was about the outrage against this leftist style brandishing of power. Menino is a Chavez wannabe judging by his actions.

Note, I really had a hard time toning this comment down because frankly people like you who don’t observe common curtesy don’t deserve polite responses. Normally I get on other atheists cases for the kind of crap they are slinging at you, but guess what, you deserve it.

 When it starts having a functional difference, and when “religion” stops enabling “fundamentalism”.